The filmmaker Wolf Gaudlitz traveled around the world with his mobile cinema for 23 years.
Now the unique art-house open-air cinema was destroyed in a fire - and with it the 66-year-old's home.
Finning
- Just recently, Wolf Gaudlitz joked that his screen would burn down if he showed an “Eberhofer” film. The Munich filmmaker could not have suspected that the joke could turn into bitter seriousness: his “Cinemamobile”, a mobile arthouse cinema, burned out completely on Friday. With him, memories and the household of the 66-year-old were destroyed for 23 years.
On Friday afternoon Gaudlitz was on his way from Vilgertshofen in the Landsberg district, where he had shown the first "Eberhofer", to the next venue in Weßling in the Starnberg district. “When I was at Finning, there was the smell of smoke,” he says. He drove the residential truck onto a dirt road and first fought the fire he discovered himself with the fire extinguisher. “It quickly became apparent that this was of no use.” When the fire brigades arrived, the vehicle was already completely in flames. Wolf Gaudlitz could only capture the sad event with the camera. "The drama is that you can only watch it burn down."
With the "Cinemamobile", the filmmaker operates a mobile open-air cinema and shows small and large film art.
With this, the 66-year-old, who is also known as an author and actor, had built a fan base.
Most recently he played at the Five Lakes Festival and the Landsberger Kultursommer.
Since 1999 Gaudlitz has been traveling with the converted Mercedes A1017, traveling to North Africa and showing the nomads films on the large outside screen.
For his demonstrations at home, he drove the off-road truck, which was also his home, from southern Italy to Upper Bavaria.
The “Cinemamobile” was almost completely destroyed by the fire, only the frame for the screen can be saved. In addition, a projector, the computer and a camera. “I just thought: Save the projector, then you can show films!” While the police estimate the damage at around 35,000 euros, the fire is a threat to the filmmaker's existence. He is temporarily staying with a friend in Landsberg.
Wolf Gaudlitz is already making plans to rebuild the “Cinemamobile” - albeit probably in a different form. Yesterday he picked up a canvas in Ichenhausen (Günzburg district) that a bus operator spontaneously donated to him after he had read about the fire. So that Gaudlitz can keep its promised demonstrations. He definitely wants to continue: “It's about culture for me,” he says. "It has suffered so much in the last year and a half."